“I’m in a minority of reporters and editors who are genuinely excited to be working at this moment in history and not in the past. Again and again, I found myself playing the role of cheerleader, trying to convince tired and broke journalists to get excited about the future of media.”

“As the militias poured into his city, Haidara knew he had to do something to protect the approximately 300,000 manuscripts in different libraries and homes in and around Timbuktu…. ‘When I thought of something happening to the manuscripts, I couldn’t sleep,’ he told me later.”